The Chimes of Big Ben

    Number 2 has something of an easy ride in this episode, that it’s Nadia Rakovski who has the hard time. Imagine her horror at being half drowned, half suffocated by that white membranic thing of a Guardian! And some little time after that whilst under interrogation.....if the operator of the electrified floor hadn’t switched it  off in time, well it would have been his funeral as well as hers! And even the Colonel took Number 2’s place to interrogate the Prisoner, “the night is young and there are many questions, first why did you resign?” And it might have worked had it not been for the poor timing. But then Number 2 wasn’t in any trouble over it, he would be able to leave The Village for London without a stain on his personal file! As for Nadia, she would stress it in her report that Number 2 did his best. Well thinking about it perhaps his best just wasn’t good enough. Who was responsible for the time of Post 5’s wristwatch? And just who was Nadia going to report to? Not Number 1 obviously, as she looked more ready to leave The Village than Number 2 was. Would Fotheirngay be leaving The Village in the same helicopter as Nadia, seeing as he had to get back to London before any embarrassing questions were asked. The Colonel would be returning later, possibly after a de-briefing session with Number 2. So it wouldn’t be the Colonel Nadia had to report to, seeing as he had had firsthand experience of the failure of the plan. Perhaps Nadia had to hand her report in to those masters Cobb mentioned back in London!
    I wonder what this particular Number 2 did after this episode? Perhaps his term of office didn’t conclude with the failure of this plan. Besides the helicopter could only hold three people at a time, not including the pilot.

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Village Life!

   Kiosk Vender “What you here again?”
   Number 6 “What do you mean by that?”
   “What do you want this time?”
   “A copy of The Tally Ho………….”
   “And a bar of soap, what did you do with the last one?”
   “I don’t know what you mean?”
   “Not five minutes ago you bought a copy of The Tally Ho and a bar of soap. What’s more you bought Number 36 a bag of sweets.”
   “Why should I do that?”
   “How should I know? Perhaps you felt sorry for the old girl!”
   “I can assure you that I’ve not been to this kiosk today, and you didn’t serve me with a copy of The Tally Ho or a bar of soap!”
    “You trying to be funny Number Six, because I can well do without your antics this morning what with one thing and another!”
    “Are you suggesting that I was here not five minutes ago?”
    “I’m not suggesting anything, I’m telling you!”
    “It wasn’t me.”
    “Then you’ve got a double, and a right pair of Sixes you would make!”
    “There’s no need to be offensive.”
    “Look I’m having a terrible day. Number Thirty six was moaning about her sweets and I couldn’t serve her because her credit allowance had been all used up. Now I’ve got this boy wanting to buy 20 woodbine cigarettes saying they’re for his dad. I’ve told him I don’t serve cigarettes to underage smokers until I’m blue in the face! Now what was it you wanted?”
    “A copy of the newspaper, a bar of soap, and twenty Woodbine for the boy.”

    “They’ll stunt his growth! There you are lad, they’ll kill you, you know. In a way they’re like a slow suicide.”
    The boy “I’m in no hurry mister. Do you know what?”
    Kisok vender “No what?”
    “Smoking killed my granddad.”
    “See!”
    “Yes, he was run over by a Mini-Moke on the way to the tobacconist!”
    The boy runs off.
    Kiosk vender “You cheeky little monkey. You know where he gets it from don’t you Number Six?”
    “No!”
    “You, that where he gets it from, you’re a bad influence, and if its not you then it’s the other you! Yes madam what can I do for you?”
    “Twenty Number Six please and a box of matches.”
    “Oh no, that’s all we need!”

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I Saw A Man Who Wasn’t There!

    On the day of his arrival in The Village, the Prisoner takes his first tentative steps outside his Cottage. Looking up at the Bell Tower he sees a man leaning out of a window looking down at him. The Prisoner rushes round to the door of the Bell Tower and rushes up the steps. But the man isn’t there, instead the Prisoner comes face to face with a statue of a woman. I cannot believe the statue was hauled up to the top of the Bell Tower simply for the benefit of the Prisoner, but if it was, perhaps the man leaning out of the window was one of the men who hauled the statue up there!

   It puts me in mind of the poem by William Hughes Mearns 1899.

    “Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...”

   Like in the poem the man in the Bell Tower wasn’t there at all! If he was, where did he come from, where did he go!
   A parallel can be drawn between the man in the Bell Tower and the housemaid standing on the balcony of ‘6 Private’ flicking a yellow duster. Having attempted to buy a map of the area, the Prisoner leaves the General Store, and sees said housemaid standing on the balcony of his cottage flicking a yellow duster. He rushes round to the door of his cottage, but by the time he gets inside, the housemaid is no longer there, but fleeing down a set of steps! But what made the housemaid run away in the first place, didn’t she want to be caught there by the new occupant? And why was she there in the first place? The cottage’s interior hardly looked like it needed dusting. But then if she hadn’t been there in the first place, she couldn’t have left her duster and so had to go back for it later, when she tried to lean on the Prisoner’s sympathy in attempting to extract some sort of information from him!

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Arrival

    Originally there was to have been a fight between two men in a fish pond located outside Lower and Upper Trinity cottages. However the scene having been shot, was cut from the finished episode. And yet, if you watch carefully as the Prisoner mounts the steps leading up to the Piazza, there are two men fighting, they grapple with each other and fall into the pool of water. As the scene plays out the two men continue to fight in the water, they appear to be squabbling over something yellow in the water. But then a few moments later when Number 2 gives to order to “Wait, wait” the two men in the water are suddenly no longer there! But what about that chap wearing a dark piped blazer, straw boater messing about in a little dinghy in the pool. The dinghy is pulled along by the chap who goes running about to eventually be smothered by the membranic Guardian. The dinghy probably manhandled instead of being rowed because the water isn’t deep enough for him to use a pair of oars!

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The Prisoner?

    The above image is taken from ‘Fall Out’ {although its actually unused film footage originally shot for the opening sequence to ‘the Prisoner’} and so at this precise moment, as ZM73 drives over Westminster Bridge and passed the Houses of Parliament he is not the Prisoner, because he’s between two situations. In the first place he has just returned to London having escaped the confines of The Village, and in the second place he’s just driven from his home on his way to hand in his letter of resignation because after that, the end of ‘Fall Out’ is the beginning of ‘Arrival,’ in effect completing the circle.  

Home At Last!
    The former Number 6 has dealt with Number 1, used force to free himself of The Village with the aid of three confederates, and after a long journey has managed to return to his home in London. However he is not a man to let the grass grow under his feet, and no sooner is he home then he’s off again behind the wheel of his Lotus. We see him driving passed the houses of Parliament obviously on his way to that underground car park again, and then to an office he knows very well where he originally handed in his letter of resignation. But this time he’s back, and he’s looking for answers, and by hook or by crook he expects to get them…..well something of that nature.
    Using a certain amount of artistic license the end of ‘Fall Out’ is similar to how it was in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ that having returned to London, he eventually has two calls to make, one in town, the other in the country. So that when we see that final scene in ‘Fall Out,’ he’s making two calls, one in town, the other to see the Colonel at his country residence!
    Physically the former Number 6 has escaped The Village, however mentally he is still a prisoner, on the basis that he doesn’t have the answers to his questions. For example he’s not sure which side runs The Village, and if he doesn’t find the answer here, he’ll find them elsewhere!
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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                     “A New perspective!”

BcNu

Building The Village!

   I don’t know how the location for The Village {I don’t mean Portmeirion} came about, perhaps teams were sent out to find an isolated location, miles from anywhere. But I can imagine how the British Intelligence part of British Foreign Office, would want The Village as far away from the homeland as is possible. How the installation came to be built on foreign soil, whether Portuguese or Spanish might have been agreed by political treaty or private agreement.

    The site being closed in on three sides by the mountains, making it only accessible from the sea, so any men and materials had to be brought in by ship, transferred to boats and landing craft due to the shallow water of the estuary. And the first task would be to clear an area for a campsite, and a landing stage ready for the landing of machines and equipment.
   The ground would initially be cleared by hand until room enough for heavy and large machinery to be brought in. Undergrowth cut down and burned, trees felled and stripped of their bark, the wood then cut into planks and used in the building process of The Village.
    Once an area had been cleared, the ground would need to be sculpted, and later landscaped, Plots for buildings marked out on the ground, so even before a boot was put on the ground a plan of The Village would have had to have been drawn up first, and then adapted to the location.

   The work force would be recruited from Labour Exchanges and Employment Bureaus. All manner of companies connected to the building trade might well have been given government contracts, to supply men and materials. They of course would eventually make up the first of the population, never to see home again!
   It would take time of course, two deep holes would have to be dug out of the ground for one thing, in order to accommodate both the Control Room and Council Chamber beneath the Town Hall. Foundations of buildings dug out by hand, the soil used to help sculpt the site. The project would require a constant line of supplies brought in by ship, each one in turn would lay off at the mouth of the estuary as it was unloaded.
    As the buildings, arches, walls, the café, bandstand, the Green Dome, The Village shop together with a number of cottages were erected roads and paths would be wound around them, tarmac and cobbles stones laid, until The Village really began to take shape. The workmen would live in a village of tents, then in rough hewn wooden shacks. How much of The Village we know was actually built before residents were moved in is unknown. It might be that originally The Village might have simply been made up of an administration building, the Green Dome, the Village shop, and a few cottages. The rest of The Village then developed and grew over the years. How many prisoners The Village was originally designed to take, is as difficult to say as the number of its population in the 1960’s.

    For any prisoner who wakes up in what appears to be his, her, or their own home, does so in a replica of a room in their own house where they used to live, and not an entire house. Basically prisoners living in The Village generally have four rooms to their accommodation, a living room, a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. There is no upstairs or downstairs. Most accommodation in The Village is terraced, there are no semi-detached houses, but there are a few detached cottages of which I suppose ‘6 Private’ is one, and in that regard Number 6 is lucky, as he appears to have a whole cottage to himself. But then it has no more rooms than anyone else’s dwelling. And yet perhaps the Butler lives as Number 6, in his annexe to the Green Dome. The same cannot be said of the Green Dome itself, because although it’s called Number 2s residence, it is in fact only Number 2’s office, he or she does not actually live there.
    The Village is very charming, picturesque, a place where one might not mind spending a fortnights holiday. And yet all the candy coloured buildings, the mixture of architecture, and the manicured gardens, are all designed to make the citizens feel very much at home, once they have overcome their initial shock of waking up there. Designed to put citizens at their ease, designed to hide the dark undercurrent that flows throughout The Village!
   

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